The Ministry of Health announced that the increase in hospital fees will be postponed until 2016.

According to the Ministry of Health's initial plan, the adjustment to increase hospital fees was scheduled to be implemented in late 2015 and early 2016.

According to Mr. Nam Lien, the implementation of this will now be postponed entirely to 2016. The planned roadmap is to start with those who have health insurance cards, and then those without health insurance cards.

Analyzing the reasons for postponing the implementation of the hospital fee increase, Mr. Nguyen Nam Lien clarified that this temporary postponement aims to give the Ministry of Health and related agencies more time to modify the hospital fee collection software.

Mr. Lien stated: "Recently, the Ministry of Health has held meetings with hospitals and identified the current difficulty: services for those with health insurance cards must be prioritized before those without. This means hospitals are offering the same service at two different prices simultaneously, so accurate software is essential to avoid unnecessary errors."

According to Mr. Lien, another reason is that many people have not yet participated in health insurance. With this extension of the deadline, they will have more time to understand the health insurance policy and have time to participate. Because people who join health insurance today will not receive benefits tomorrow; they will only receive them after a certain period of time.

People wait for their turn to be examined by a doctor. (Source: VNA)

According to the Ministry of Health, those participating in health insurance will receive support from the state budget. Currently, in more than 10 provinces, the rate of health insurance participation is below 60% of the population, and those without insurance will face difficulties when the new hospital fees are applied to those paying directly. Therefore, people should increase their participation in health insurance.

Decree No. 16/2015/ND-CP, issued by the Government on February 14, 2015, stipulates the roadmap for adjusting medical service prices, including a roadmap for accurately and fully calculating the price of public services in three stages.

The first phase, up to 2016, includes all salary and direct costs; the second phase, up to 2018, includes all salary, direct costs, management costs, and depreciation of fixed assets; the third phase, up to 2020, includes all salary, direct costs, management costs, and depreciation of fixed assets.

Therefore, the inter-ministerial committee is developing a circular on adjusting service prices to standardize prices across hospitals of the same category nationwide, with 1,800 service prices, mainly adjusting consultation fees and bed fees based on different disease categories.

According to VIETNAM+